


you ruined my life (by not being mine)

by mitslits



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, criminal ben, modern!AU, police officer leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13628229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitslits/pseuds/mitslits
Summary: Ben has left his life as one of Snoke's lackeys behind. He's traded in larceny for domesticity, Snoke for Rey. But you can never escape your past, and his has come back to haunt him.





	you ruined my life (by not being mine)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flashforeward](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashforeward/gifts).



> many thanks to PalenDrome for being a lovely beta~
> 
> i hope you like this, my person! i tried to make it angsty enough for you. had a lot of fun coming up with this weird sort of au and figuring out how to fit little bits of canon into it. i've always been fond of angst, and all your prompts were really good for that, but this one just stuck out to me. i came up with a lot of ideas before finally settling on this one so i hope it was a good one!

It all begins -- and ends -- with the voice on the other end of the phone.

It’s early morning, and grey clouds turn the air oppressive. Ben lies beside a still-sleeping Rey. He looks at the leaves shaking in the wind and listens to her sighing in her dreams.

The ringing of the phone shatters the stillness. Ben scrambles to answer it before Rey wakes, but he feels her shifting as he presses it to his ear.

“Hello?” he asks quietly.

For a moment, there is only silence.

“Hello?” Ben prompts again.

Static crackles, followed by just two words: “Kylo Ren.”

Ben’s blood freezes in his veins. His grip on the phone turns white-knuckled. “What did you say?”

The only reply is a soft click, the sound of the mystery caller hanging up.

“Hello? Hello? Mother _fucker._ ” Ben glares down at the screen and rakes his hand through his hair.

Rey rolls over to blink at him blearily. “You okay? Who was it?” she asks in a sleep-slurred voice.

“They didn’t say.” Ben sits stock-still, staring at the covers.

They didn’t have to. He knows anyway.

Brows drawn together, Rey sits up next to him. She wraps her arms around his neck and rests her forehead against his cheek. “You okay?” she repeats.

Moving mechanically, Ben reaches up to rest his hand over Rey’s forearm, his thumb brushing along her wrist. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” Rey asks.

Her breath is warm against his skin. He can feel her pulse beneath his fingers. “Rey?” He turns his head just enough to look at her, eyes roaming hungrily over her face.

She just hums, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“I…”

_-love you_

_-need you_

_-fucked up_

“...have to go.” He unwinds her arms from around his neck and climbs out of the bed.

Rey lies back against the pillows as she watches him get dressed. “Where to?”

Ben tugs a shirt over his head and moves back to their bedside. “I’ll see you later.” He presses a kiss to her forehead, grabs his phone, and slips it into his pocket.

Frowning, Rey props herself up on her elbows. “Ben, what is going on?”

He just shakes his head. “Nothing. I’ll see you later. I promise.” He leaves her staring after him with something between confusion and resignation in her gaze.

~

It’s the same bad side of town as any other. Those who are unfortunate enough to find themselves relegated to the trash heaps huddle along the walls, everything they own piled haphazardly beside them. Garbage fills the gaps between, spilling out from the dumpsters. Brick walls lined with mold and graffitti provide an unappealing backdrop for so much human misery.

Ben turns into an alleyway, hood pulled low over his face, hands shoved as deep into his pockets as they can get.  The men and women huddled in their rags eye him as he walks past. It’s easy enough for Ben to ignore them. They’re nothing compared to who’s waiting.

Everything is just as he remembers. The door is solid steel and rust reaches greedy fingers up the studs, sowing itself into any seam it can find. A faded ‘Keep Out’ sign is placed dead center. Some of the letters have peeled away, but the message is made clear by the hulking figure lying in wait at the entrance.

She cuts an impressive figure in a silver suit, extremely out of place in such a dilapidated section of the city. Her hair is slicked back, and her piercing blue eyes track Ben’s every move as he approaches.

“Phasma,” Ben mutters.

She folds her arms over her chest and doesn’t move an inch. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Cut the bullshit and let me in. I know he called.” Ben stares at her, practically daring her to turn him away.

Phasma cocks her head to one side, studying him. “We didn’t expect you so soon,” she says cooly. Then she steps aside.

“Don’t know why the fuck you expected me at all,” Ben says.

Phasma says nothing as he hauls open the door and steps into the place that haunts his nightmares.

~

_He dreams in disjointed fragments._

-handcuffs

-sirens

-iron bars and strung-out smiles

_They pile upon him until he has to open his eyes or be crushed by them. He doesn’t make any noise that he knows of, but Rey wakes anyways. She always seems to know when he needs her most._

_“Hey,” she whispers as her hand sneaks up to rest on his chest._

_He lets out a long, slow breath. “Hey,” he whispers back._

_She shifts closer to him, tucks her head into the curve of his neck, and sighs his name._

_He holds her close until her breathing evens out. Only then does he close his eyes and fall back into sleep himself._

~

There he sits, looking as if he hasn’t moved in all the years Ben has been gone.

“Kylo Ren,” he purrs. The dim lighting in the warehouse-like room allows for only glimpses of his mottled skin. His eyes gleam in the semi-dark, hungry, seeking.

“Why did you call me?” Ben asks. He doesn’t bother to correct his greeting. Snoke is not the sort of man to take preferences into account.

Chuckling lowly, Snoke reclines back against his plush seat. The rows of rings on his fingers glint whenever they catch a stray ray of light. They are the only outward display of ill-gotten wealth in the room, but Ben knows they serve more purpose than showing off.

There’s a scar on one cheek courtesy of the ostentatious ruby that rests on Snoke’s index finger, it’s red stone made to draw blood.

Snoke smacks his tongue against his teeth, bringing Ben back to the present. “You look soft. What have you been up to since I last saw you?”

Ben curls his hand into a fist. His fingernails bite into the flesh of his palm. “Why did you call me?”

There’s a dangerous pause before Snoke speaks again. “I have a job. I want your help,” he says. The gleam in his eye seems to grow brighter.

“No,” Ben says without hesitation.

Snoke laughs humorlessly. “You seem to have heard a question I didn’t ask. I’m telling you I have a job. You’re going to do it.”

“No,” Ben says again. “I’m not.”

Snoke shifts in his chair, leaning to one side. The light picks him up better that way. His face is riddled with deep, unsightly welts, eyes two black tar pits in the middle. “That’s interesting,” he says. “You seemed to have had such a good memory before. _Can_ it have deteriorated so much in such a short period of time?”

Ben grits his teeth. “Things have changed,” he says slowly in a vain attempt at reason. “My parents have moved up in the force. They have more power now.”

“Which is precisely why I need you,” Snoke cuts in. “I’ve grown bored, Kylo. Surely you knew that you could never really escape my grasp.”

Ben stares back at him impassively.

Snoke grins -- a truly gruesome spectacle -- and leans forward. “Let’s go over the details, shall we?”

Ben’s jaw clenches. He thinks about protesting again, but what good would it do? Instead, he turns on his heel and starts walking away. “Don’t call me again,” he says, voice echoing around the room.

“If you leave now,” Snoke calls out behind him, “you will regret it.”

Ben doesn’t miss a step. He’ll regret it more if he stays.

~

_Pedaling furiously, Kylo risks a glance back over his shoulder. He can hear sirens, but they aren’t close enough to really worry him. Yet._

_He turns his attention back to the road in front of him just in time to see someone turn the corner right into his path. “Shit!”_

_Quickly, he jerks the handlebars to one side, but his momentum still sends both him and the bike careening into the girl._

_She goes down with an indignant yelp._

_Kylo, the bike, and the mysterious girl lay tangled together on the pavement, both of them too stunned to move for a second._

_Then the girl leaps to her feet - and immediately crumples back down. She wraps her hands around her ankle, breath hissing through her teeth. “Ow, goddammit.”_

_Kylo gets painfully to his own feet, with one eye on his bike, the other on her. She’s beautiful, but furious._

_“What the hell?” she hisses up at him from her position on the ground. “Can’t you watch where you’re going?”_

_“Sorry,” Kylo mutters. He gives his bike a quick once-over to make sure it’s still in working order. “But you sort of stepped out right in front of me.”_

_Huffing, she rubs at her ankle. “Well, thanks to you, I won’t be stepping_ anywhere _for awhile.”_

_Kylo opens his mouth to apologize again when the sirens scream out, closer than ever. Startled, he involuntarily looks back over his shoulder._

_She notices and rolls her eyes. “Let me guess. You were trying to make a brilliant escape when you crashed into me.”_

_Shoving down his nerves, Kylo pastes an easy smile on his face. “Yeah, that’s it,” he says with a shrug._

_She turns a skeptical eye on his bike. “So that would make that your getaway vehicle,” she muses._

_Kylo nods._

_Snorting, she carefully gets back to her feet, testing her bad ankle. “You’re clearly not getting enough of the cut.” She winces as she puts more weight on her foot._

_“Let me take you somewhere,” Kylo says quickly before she can keep straining herself. “A clinic or something. You can ride on the front.” He gestures to the handlebars which seem to have fared better than she had in the crash._

_For a second she hesitates, but another attempt to stand flat-footed has her breath hitching in her chest. “Fine,” she concedes. “But only because it’s your fault in the first place.”_

_Kylo doesn’t argue, just settles himself on the bike and waits until she has done the same. He has to lean sideways a bit to see around her, and he notices her watching him from the corner of her eye._

_They ride silently for a few moments before she unexpectedly clears her throat and speaks. “I’m Rey, by the way.”_

_Kylo pedals another block or two before replying. “Ben.”_

~

He doesn’t go straight home; he’s too cautious for that. Instead, Ben weaves through an incomprehensible pattern of back streets, cuts through shops, even hops a few fences to lose any tail Snoke might have set on him. It’s a safe assumption that he already knows where he lives, but Ben doesn’t want to risk leading him there if he doesn’t.

By the time he gets home, Rey is washing the breakfast dishes. She looks up when he comes in and nods towards a plate set aside for him. “Might want to warm that up,” she says. “I didn’t know when you’d be back.”

Ignoring the food, Ben moves to where Rey stands in front of the sink. He wraps his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her shoulder with a soft sigh. “I want to take you somewhere,” he murmurs.

Rey doesn’t stop what she’s doing, but she does sway back against him, humming. “Like where?” she asks, playing along.

“Wherever you want to go,” Ben says. “An island. The mountains. Wherever.”

A wide smile breaks out on Rey’s face. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing.” Ben turns his face into her neck and presses a soft kiss behind her jaw.

Slowly, Rey lowers the plate she’d been scrubbing back into the sudsy water. “This is about that phone call from earlier, isn’t it?”

His arms tighten around her waist, but he doesn’t say anything. His silence is an answer in itself.

With a quiet huff of frustration, Rey yanks the stopper from the drain. “Okay. I have to go to work, but when I get back, we _are_ talking about this.”

Sighing, Ben releases her, letting his arms fall back to his own sides. “Fine,” he says.

She goes up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek before she leaves, pausing in the doorway to wave goodbye.

He gives her a half-hearted wave in return, eyes fixed on her until the door hides her from him. He picks at the food she’d left for him, but his appetite has been soured by the morning’s events. As much as he hated to admit it, Snoke was right; there really was no escaping what he’d done.

~

_Kylo’s hand tightens around his backpack strap as he stands outside the station, staring up at the stone facade. It’s meant to be intimidating, he thinks. People_

_-_ Vagrants

-Lawbreakers

-Criminals

_aren’t supposed to want to go in. Criminals. Like the one he’s about to become._

_He sucks in a deep breath out and lets it out slowly, forcing himself to relax. He can’t look suspicious. He’s just here to see his parents. That’s all._

_Kylo pushes through the doors. It’s busier than he expects, and his heart is pounding so hard he’s sure someone will hear it. They’ll call him out. They’ll surround him. They’ll search through his backpack and find the laptop, the flash drive, the programs he’s written to wipe their database, and then he’ll go to jail. Worse, he’ll have failed Snoke._

_But nobody even seems to notice him, just a kid drifting through the general hubbub. He sticks as close to the walls as he can until he reaches the front desk._

_A pleasant-looking, older woman with wrinkled skin and glasses the size of Wisconsin perched on her face sits at her computer, typing rapidly. She looks up when Kylo approaches and nods. “What can I do for you, kiddo?”_

_Kylo’s eyes flicker down to her nameplate. “Miss Kanata,” he says. “I’m looking for my mother.”_

_She pauses in her typing, gives him a skeptical once-over. “A little old to have gotten yourself lost, aren’t you?” she asks, one eyebrow raised._

_Kylo rolls his eyes. “She_ works _here,” he says. “I’m not lost.”_

_Maz laughs a little before turning to her keyboard. “Relax, kid. Mom’s name?”_

_“Leia Organa.” Kylo shifts his backpack, the strap digging into his shoulder. It’s starting to feel heavier than it really should._

_This time Maz looks at him a little more closely, her eyes alight with interest. “So you’re Leia’s kid. Interesting. We’ve heard a lot about you.” She props her chin in her hand like she’s getting ready to relay all the stories she’s heard about him over the years._

_Deciding he’s had quite enough of this Kanata, Kylo turns away with a huff. “I’ll find her office myself,” he mutters._

_He pushes away from the counter and plunges back into the mess of officers and perps.  Eventually, he discovers a row of offices near the back of the station. The crowd is thinner here, and it doesn’t take him long to find Leia’s office, her name stenciled onto the nameplate near the door._

_Not bothering to knock, Kylo pushes his way in._

_Leia looks up sharply at the intrusion, annoyance turning into surprise when she sees who it is. “Ben.”_

_Kylo drops into a hard, plastic chair shoved up near the window and drops his pack beside him. “Hey, mom.”_

_“What are you doing here?” she asks. She hasn’t moved from behind her desk, her pen still poised over the papers she’d been filling out as if she didn’t expect this interruption to last long._

_Shrugging sullenly, Kylo glances up at her from beneath his shaggy bangs. “Dunno. Just wanted to come.” He reaches for his backpack. “I can go if you don’t want me here.”_

_Leia makes a small sound of protest. “You can stay, as long as you’re quiet,” she says. “I have to get these reports filled out.” She returns her eyes to her papers but they don’t stay there long. “Are you sure you’re okay?”_

_There’s a slight hint of suspicion in her voice and Kylo bristles, even if it’s well-deserved. “Jesus Christ. I’m leaving.” He gets up, slinging his bag over one shoulder like he really has a choice._

_That finally pulls Leia out of her seat. “Sorry, this is just… unlike you.”_

_Kylo hesitates, eyes narrowed._

_“But not in a bad way,” Leia adds. Unconsciously, she taps her pen against her desk._

_Slowly, trying to appear at least a little reluctant, Kylo lowers himself back into the seat. “You need better chairs in here.”_

_Half a smile flashes over Leia’s face as she too sits back down. “I don’t get many visitors.” Returning to her reports, she falls silent._

_Kylo lets things simmer between them for a while before clearing his throat. “Can you get me some water or something? It was a long walk here.”_

_“There’s a water cooler down the hall and to the right.” Leia sounds somewhat absent, most of her attention on her work._

_Kylo slumps down into the chair, his legs sprawled out in front of him. “Yeah, but can you get it for me though?”_

_With a quiet scoff, Leia sets down her pen. “You’re kidding me.”_

_Kylo lets his head flop from one side to the other in lazy dissension. “Come on,” he whines. “It’s my first time here, I don’t know where anything is. Please?” He pushes his bottom lip into a truly pitiful pout._

_Leia puts a hand to her forehead briefly, but she pushes her chair back. “Would his Highness like anything else while I’m up?” she asks, her tone heavy with sarcasm._

_“Food would be nice,” Kylo says, smirking. “This place has to have a vending machine.”_

_Shaking her head, Leia snatches up her purse and leaves her office grumbling about ungrateful sons._

_The second the door closes behind her, Kylo pulls out his laptop. He gets it up and running before rooting out his flash drive and sticking it into Leia’s computer. He bruteforces her password (littleben12, to his eternal embarrassment), downloads the drive’s malware directly onto her computer, and is back to his own laptop within minutes. Letting out a long, slow breath, he opens his terminal, connects to Snoke’s network, and assures him that the dirty work is done. They’ll be ghosts in the system now; any information from the network security systems within a 20-mile radius of their target will be ferreted out and wiped clean._

_By the time Leia returns, Kylo is innocently scrolling through news articles. He watches her from the corner of his eye as she sits back at her computer, but she only glances at it before returning to scrawling her signature on the pages before her. His chest loosens, and he can breathe again._

_It’s easier the second time. And the third. By the time he’s two years older, he barely feels a thing._

~

The phone rings for the second time that day.

Ben looks at it, listens to it go on and on, shrill in the stillness. He reaches for it.

“I was wondering if you were going to answer.” Snoke sounds highly satisfied that he did.

“Say something important, or I’m going to hang up,” Ben growls. He’s not in the fucking mood for Snoke’s little games.

Snoke’s laugh comes through as filtered static, sounding even more grotesque than it does in person. “Very well. I called to tell you that I can see why you left me after all. Your girlfriend is very… fiery.”

Ben’s heart pumps ice through his veins. He tries to speak, to ask what the hell Snoke is talking about, but he doesn’t have to.

Snoke continues without prompting. “I don’t enjoy doing this, Ren, but you’ve left me no choice. I need you for this job. And in all fairness, I did warn you that you would regret your refusal. If nothing else, I am a man of my word.” He hangs up without waiting for a reply.

For a moment, Ben sits frozen in place. It takes him a few precious seconds to connect the dots. Snoke has Rey. He’d followed him home after all. He’d seen her leave.

_Snoke has Rey._

That thought galvanizes him. He shoots to his feet and moves without thinking, flying out of the house and grabbing his bike before he even realizes what he’s doing. He weaves expertly through the traffic, all the while thinking of what the hell he’s going to do when he reaches Snoke. He’ll do the job. He’ll have to. It’s his fault Rey got dragged into this in the first place.

Ben ditches the bike in the alley outside of Snoke’s headquarters, ignoring all the surprised glances thrown his way as he careens through the passageway. Phasma isn’t waiting outside this time - not a good sign.

Without pausing to catch his breath, Ben slams through the door.

Snoke is waiting for him, draped in his usual place, Phasma standing at his side, her hands clasped behind her back, frosty eyes fixed on Ben.

“What have you done with her,” Ben seethes, his voice clipped with rage. His chest heaves from the reckless race to get there, his hair plastered against his forehead with sweat. Still, his eyes rove ceaselessly around the room, searching for Rey.

Snoke snaps his fingers.

A shape detaches itself from the shadows behind Snoke’s chair. It materializes as Hux steps into the light, an amused curl to his mouth.

“Fetch the girl,” Snoke says. His eyes stay firmly fixed on Ben.

Ben meets them with a glare of pure, undiluted hatred. Everything vanishes in a wave of concern when Hux returns, dragging Rey unceremoniously across the floor.

“She put up quite a fight, this one,” Hux says. He tosses her forwards and she lands with a heavy thud, limp and unmoving.

Instantly, Ben is on his knees at her side.

Rey’s face is a mess of cuts and bruises. Blood bubbles from her lips with each weak, rasping breath, but her eyes flutter open when she feels Ben’s hands on her. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out, only something harsh and guttural.

Ben rests her head on his lip, hands cradling her face. “I’m so sorry, Rey, but it’s okay now. I’m here, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“It’s a shame what we had to do to her,” Snoke sighs, and he almost sounds sincere. “I would very much have liked to make use of her.”

Rey’s breathing grows more staggered. Her eyes droop closed again, and her hands rest limply at her sides. After another moment, even the small movement of her chest stops completely.

“Rey?” Ben asks, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone. “Rey?” She’s dead, he knows she is, but he can’t help shaking her a little anyways, pleading with her to open her eyes again. He bends over her, presses their foreheads together, and exhales a long, shaky breath.

When he looks up again, his eyes glimmer with barely suppressed rage, all of it focused on Snoke. “You killed her,” he hisses.

“I only did what I had to,” Snoke says dismissively. “You knew the consequences of refusing me.”

Carefully, gently, Ben moves Rey’s head from his lap so he can get to his feet. He can’t look at the limp body stretched out on the floor or he’ll lose what little composure he’s scraped together. “I’m not going to let you get away with this. I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” Snoke lounges back, head tilted to one side. “Go to the police? And what will you tell them about our involvement, I wonder? You’re as guilty as I am, Ren, don’t try to deny it.”

“I’m not,” Ben snarls through gritted teeth. “You killed her; you’re a murderer.”

Beginning to look bored, Snoke turns to Phasma. “Who killed the girl?”

Phasma nods towards Ben. “I saw him with my own eyes,” she says.

Snoke puts the same question to Hux and receives the same response. Then he faces Ben once more. “Three witnesses against you. Whose testimony do you think will stand up in court?”

Ben’s hands are clenched into fists at his sides, but even in his anger, he knows when he’s been beaten. He swallows down the words he wants to say, digs his fingernails into his palms so hard they leave marks, then slumps forward. “Fine,” he mutters. “You win. I’ll do the job.” He has to force the words out, but out they come, falling like

_-lead weights_

_-chains_

_-dead bodies_

to the floor.

“I knew you would,” Snoke purrs.

They spend some time after that going over the details of the job, but Ben hardly hears them. He already knows what he has to do. His mind is filled with white noise as he tries to comprehend the fact that Rey is gone. He keeps catching glimpses of her from the corner of his eye. He’s always quick to turn his face away.

It starts to hurt when he has to leave her. There’s a sickening feeling of _wrong_ to walk away from her body, but he can’t do anything for her now. Can’t ride through the streets with a lifeless form on his bike. Can’t bury her in Snoke’s concrete wasteland. Can’t do anything but leave her behind.

He tries to cling to the numbness, to the white noise, but pain, once first felt, is not easily assuaged. It envelopes him the whole way home, which he travels to in a straight line. He was crazy, he tells himself, to have ever thought he could escape Snoke.

Ben returns to an empty house. He stands in the doorway for a long minute, staring dully at his surroundings. They should be familiar, but there’s too much of Rey in them to make sense without her. The bed they’d shared, the couch they’d curled up on, the kitchen where he’d taught her how to cook-

Black anger rises in an unstoppable tide. He slams the door behind him hard enough to make the whole frame shake and goes straight to his computer.

Snoke wants him to mess with the police files? Fine. He’ll mess with the goddamn police files.

~

Ben stares up at the police station, one hand around a backpack strap, feeling distinctly like a little kid again. He takes a step forward when he catches sight of Rey from the corner of his eye. His head whips around so fast his hair flies in his face. He hurries to push it out of his eyes, but by the time he does, the illusion is gone.

Gritting his teeth, Ben pushes forward. He should know better than to even look. He’d spent the night catching similar glimpses, certain he’d seen or heard something, some sign of her, but it had always turned out to be nothing. Morning had come without a moment of rest, and it seemed as if the day was doomed to be the same.

The station is just as busy as he remembers. It hasn’t changed much since the last time he’d been there. It had only been a few years ago, months after meeting Rey, the last job he’d done for Snoke. Thinking about it leaves a sour taste in his mouth, and he tries vainly to swallow it down.

Maz Kanata still sits typing away at her desk. She gives him a nod as he comes in and tilts her head in the direction of Leia’s new office.

Wordlessly, Ben makes his way there.

The nameplate is almost intimidating, “Commissioner Organa” etched in big, bold letters.

Ben hesitates outside the door, tries to steel himself. If he doesn’t do this, Rey won’t ever forgive him. She probably won’t anyways, but he can at least try to make up for what he’s done. He reaches out and knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Leia calls out.

Ben enters the office, unable to look directly at his mother. His eyes settle somewhere near the side of her head. “Hey.”

“Ben.” Leia sounds

_-surprised_

_-pleased_

_-accusatory?_

And then she’s standing and moving around her desk. Leaning back against it casually, she tilts her head to one side. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks.

Finding himself at an unsurprising loss for words, Ben stands there with his mouth open, grasping for an excuse. “Research,” he finally says.

Leia’s brows draw together.

“I want to know more about what you do,” Ben says, scrambling to come up with something plausible. “I’ve never really learned any specifics about your job, or your cases, or anything. I just… wanted to know.” He shrugs one shoulder.

One of Leia’s eyebrows arches upwards. “Our cases are classified,” she says. “You aren’t allowed to know specifics. As for the rest of the job, I can assure you it’s not nearly as interesting as you think it is.”

Ben pastes a smile on his face. “Still. I was thinking I could hang around here for a bit, just to see.”

Leia hesitates, and Ben suddenly realizes he has no idea what he’ll do if she refuses. He could always break in but if he gets caught before he’s finished…

Thankfully, she waves her hand towards a couch pushed up against the far wall of the room. “Suit yourself. But don’t blame me if you end up falling asleep.” She seats herself back at her desk and focuses on her computer screen.

Ben sprawls out on the couch, uses his backpack as a pillow as he stares up at the ceiling. He lets time slip past, the only sound that of his own breathing and Leia busily working away at her keyboard. He keeps his mind carefully blank. There’s only one person his thoughts want to turn to, but he refuses to sink into that abyss. He can’t afford to lose focus.

When he feels enough time has passed, he gets up off the couch and stretches. “You’re right,” he says in answer to Leia’s curious glance, “this is kind of boring. I’m going to take a look around the station, see if anything interesting is going on.” He walks over to her side and kisses the top of her head, a first for Ben Solo.

Leia blinks up at him in surprise, but she seems far from displeased. “Okay,” she says after a second.

Slipping the keys he’d swiped into his back pocket, Ben heads for the door. Her voice stops him in his tracks, one hand on the doorknob.

“Ben?”

He glances back over his shoulder, half-expecting to see her glaring at him and demanding her keys back. “Yeah?”

She leans forward a bit, brows knitted together. “Is everything okay?”

Ben lets out a small sigh of relief. “Everything’s fine, mom.” Then, before she can say another word, he leaves her office.

He pauses a minute in the hallway, waits for his heartbeat to get back to something of a normal pace before pushing off the wall and heading deeper into the station. Several times, he has to duck into doorways to avoid officers. Several times, he thinks he sees glimpses of brown hair and gleaming eyes just out of reach.

Finally, he makes it to a gridded metal gate with an almost comically large padlock guarding it. Ben works his way through the keys as quickly as he can, muttering “come on, come on, come on” under his breath until he finds the right one. Throwing a look back over his shoulder, he moves inside and shoves the keys back in his pocket. All he has to do now is find a few files, snap a few pictures

 _-illegal, illegal,_ so _illegal_

and then he can get out of here.

Row after row of filing cabinets stretch out in front of him. He opens the first drawer of the first one and is greeted by more rows, this time of manila folders. Some are full to bursting; others look positively anemic.

Ben picks out one of the thinner ones and starts flipping through. It’s an open case and there’s not much detail. Exactly what he’s looking for.

But it’s only for a breaking and entering. That’s not good enough.

Another glance over his shoulder, another glimpse of a ghost-like figure that he’s absolutely going to ignore. Several more files prove equally useless, and he’s beginning to get antsy. The longer he spends in here, the more chance someone is going to walk in on him. Then, he strikes gold.

Open case, no real suspects, wanted for a double homicide. Perfect.

Ben pulls out his phone, gets pictures of absolutely everything in the file, and stuff it back in right where he’d found it. Heart in his throat, he closes the cabinet and leaves the room, making sure to lock it behind him.

He gets back into Leia’s office to find her just where he’d left her, and the keys burn a hole in his pocket. He makes his way back over to the couch and settles himself back down.

“Find anything interesting?” Leia asks.

“What?” Ben’s heart skips a beat or two before he remembers what he’d said before heading out. “Oh. No.”

Leia props her hand on her chin and sighs. “Shame. I could have used some entertainment.”

Ben just hums, leans back against his backpack, and goes back to staring at the ceiling. The keys dig uncomfortably into his flesh, but he can’t just give them back. He’ll have to wait until Leia leaves and hide them on her desk. His eyes slide down until he can see her, still bent over her keyboard, staring at her screen with a frown. Sighing, he rolls his eyes upwards again. He could be here a while.

~

Eventually, of course, Leia does leave. She’s called out to deal with a particularly troublesome suspect, and Ben is up and moving the second the door closes behind her. He drops the keys on the floor near her chair and sneaks out of the station while Leia is still busy trying to get everything settled.

The clock is already ticking down to when he’ll get caught, and it lends speed to his feet as he pedals home. They’ll check the security footage eventually, he knows. But it will all be worth it.

The instant he gets back, he sets himself up at his computer. It takes some time to hack into their network, but he’s done it enough times that it’s practically routine. Once he’s bypassed their security systems, the real work begins.

Carefully, he stitches Snoke, Phasma, and Hux into the criminal database. It’s a patch job he hopes they won’t look too closely at; he has no fingerprints, no Socials, nothing but the cases he attaches them to. Ben trawls through case file after case file, inserting them wherever he can. Witness statements for suspects that might have had red hair or were unusually tall are easy enough to find, and eventually he’s connected Phasma and Hux to several older cases.

Snoke is more difficult. His disfigurement forces Ben to be more specific

_-”he was tall”_

_-”definitely a man”_

_-”couldn’t see his face”_

but eventually, he does manage it. It’s an older case, happened just a few months after Ben had been born, but it works.

Ben sits back, admiring his work. Phasma, Hux, and Snoke, previously ghosts in the system, are officially burdened with records. Now all he has to do is pin the homicide on them.  

Ben opens up the anonymous tip line and studies the photos he’d taken of the file. It’s easy enough to place a redhead, unusually tall woman, and a masked figure a few streets over from 3rd, where the murder had taken place, at 1:00 in the morning, a mere half hour after the estimated time of death.

He submits the tip.

As soon as it’s through, he shuts his computer down, takes out the hard drive, and tosses it in the microwave. It sparks, burns, sets the smoke detector screaming until he rips the batteries out of it. He’s left with a blackened, useless hunk of plastic. His phone gets a similar treatment. He opts for something slightly more old-fashioned, though, taking a sledgehammer to it until it’s a heap of plastic and glass.

Ben sweeps all of it into the trash.

After that, all he has to do is wait. He watches it play out in his head. Someone will see him on the tapes. The police will come here, to the place that isn’t really his place anymore, can’t be without Rey. He’ll go with him. He’ll apologize to his mother. He won’t tell them what he’s done.

He’ll be arrested, he’s certain of that. But so will Phasma and Hux. And Snoke.

His hands curl reflexively into fists.

Then there’s a soothing hand on his shoulder, and he knows it isn’t really there, but he lets himself be comforted by it all the same. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.

Only silence answers him.

There’s a knock at the door, a pounding, really, and then a voice calling, “Mr. Solo? Open up! This is the police.”

It’s almost a relief to hand himself over to them. He’ll serve his time, however long they give him. It won’t be enough. He’ll still see her from the corner of his eye. He’ll still feel her next to him.

_-Rey_

_-Rey_

_-Rey._


End file.
